Oh poor thing! Ron Johnson is upset!

[imanamerican63]

He called out Obama for criticizing Johnson and his children owning 4 private jets.

Cry me a river! Johnson attacked Obama at every turn for 4 years! Johnson also had attacked Biden and his family!

[PortTack]

1. Well..then dem messaging is working after all!

[LymphocyteLover]

17. LOL!! Right?

[TheBlackAdder]

37. Or Putin's check bounced.

[SoCalDavidS]

2. What The Fuck Is Wrong With Wisconsin?

Vote this Piece Of Shit OUT!!

[Meadowoak]

4. The same thing that's wrong with Floriduh.

[Backseat Driver]

32. Fundamentalist Lutherans???

who, long ago, immigrated and/or settled in farming states, as they moved from New England areas into the Great Lake areas from the Germanic/Nordic/Slavic lands of Europe...dairy anyone??? Why - those folks didn't like living among the Jews, the city POCs who settled in Great Lake industrial cities post Civil War, and the Irish and Slavic papists - they were Bible literalists...

[soldierant]

45. Lutherans

have a kind of a grudge agains catholics that must go back to the 95 theses. I was brought up Lutheran, but my church was mild comared to some I've heared of since.

[keep_left]

5. Lots of chud areas, that's what. Same as most states...

...especially those in the northern plains like WI and MN. But just about every state has several bright red areas. Western WI is the problem here; it's largely rural farm country and very conservative. Western MA is in a similar situation, by the way. Unfortunately, most states are purple overall, not blue or red. That's with the exception of OK, which last I checked didn't have a single blue county.

[Jerry2144]

9. You forgot gerrymandering and selective voter suppression

Those certainly don’t help getting quality people in office there

[keep_left]

14. Not much doubt about that. And it will continue and intensify...

...in this election. But western WI is really in a problematic situation: even Democratic politicians have to be hard-right in order to be successful there, and then they're just seen as imitators, so why vote for them? It's difficult to get elected as a Democrat in western WI, to say the least. Also, while gerrymandering may be an issue, Ron Johnson is in the Senate, so that position can't be gamed that way.

[LymphocyteLover]

18. Thankfully in statewide elections the blue areas can overcome the conservative areas, if only barely

[TheRealNorth]

21. I would say its Northern WI and the suburbs around Milwaukee that are the real problem...

SW Wisconsin has been swingy, but not as Radical Republican as the Northern Counties (excluding those counties along Lake Superior, and a few others). But the majority of the Republican votes are coming from the suburbs and collar counties around Milwaukee Co.

[Ziggysmom]

30. The wealthier suburbs go red. Also plenty of Karens and magats north, south and west of

Milwaukee and liberal Madison, unfortunately.

[Peregrine Took]

31. Including Door County in "Northern Wi"?

I always had the feeling that the locals up there didn't appreciate we Illinoisian's vacationing up there.

[Poiuyt]

50. When we went to Door County this summer, we saw a huge number of

pro-Democratic signs.

[keep_left]

36. Yeah, I forgot about that. I'm mostly familiar with the counties of western WI...

...on the MN border. You see lots of chud signs on farmland driving through western WI, most of them hand-painted. Lots of Bircher rhetoric on those signs, too--not to mention endless "Prolife Across America" billboards, etc. I haven't traveled to northern WI for a long time. The divide does seem to be rural-urban to a large degree. You would think that wealthy suburbs would be really conservative, and some are, but the suburbs are often pretty diverse places, particularly the first-ring suburban areas.

A union organizer once explained to me that the reason that so many of the counties and cities along the Great Lakes are still reliably Democratic is due to the original immigrants to those areas (Finns, Eastern Europeans, etc.). While most of those people have long since died off, they made sure to instill a historical memory in the younger generations of the labor struggles that were won in earlier times. And there are still a lot of their descendants living today who remember the old stories. It does go some way toward explaining how places like northeast MN still vote Democratic when most of the other rural areas of MN are bright red.

[Wednesdays]

56. Don't write off Oklahoma just yet

There's a Democratic candidate that now has a really good chance at knocking out the Repug governor.

[Hieronymus Phact]

11. It's the right wing propaganda

It's destroying the country.

[SergeStorms]

25. But it takes many stupid people...

for that propaganda to work. These are people who have one issue or another with including everyone in the American dream.

They have no issue whatsoever in turning it into the American nightmare.

[Hieronymus Phact]

34. Don't assume smart people are immune to propaganda -no one is.

[SergeStorms]

43. Have you seen....

interviews with average Trumpublicans?

These are people who are not intellectually gifted - to put it mildly - and those who are slightly more intelligent have anger or psychological issues.

No person who's intelligent believes the propaganda. Even the people who create the propaganda don't believe it, but they're intelligent enough to know it works on the uneducated masses. Others appear to believe it, but are only along for the ride because they're benefitting in some other way, usually monetarily.

[Hieronymus Phact]

49. yes i have,

Have you met any doctors and engineers and programmers and other bright types who buy this stuff? I have, they're not stupid at all. It's a mistake to use a single brush to paint them as all the same as some dimwit interviewing on video.

[SergeStorms]

52. I haven't met a single Doctor or Engineer...

who believes this Qanon baloney. Maybe it's geographical, maybe your luck is at a low point right now. There are other reasons for some people to buy into the whole Trump cult phenomenon, like I attempted to explain. Psychological issues probably being number one on that list.

We'll have to agree to disagree right now, Hieronymus. No hard feelings, OK?

Have a great day. 👍

[Mr. Evil]

16. I guess all that cheese

has backed up their bowels all the way to their brains.

[Historic NY]

20. Cheese it harden the brain like concrete

[NullTuples]

33. Hasn't been the same since Scott Walker. It became a laboratory for democracy-breaking

[keep_left]

41. There is a really good report (from the late '90s I believe) that explains the historical...

...antecedents of the Scott Walker phenomenon. It's called The Feeding Trough, and it shows how several well-funded "think" tanks and right-wing foundations helped turn Wisconsin into, as you say, "a laboratory for democracy-breaking". I forget who published it, but it's worth a read if you can find a copy (an interlibrary loan may be able to help).

[NullTuples]

46. This one?

The feeding trough : the Bradley Foundation, "The Bell curve" & the real story behind W-2, Wisconsin's national model for welfare reform : an investigative report

Authors: Phil Wilayto, Job is a Right Campaign
Print Book, English, 1997
Edition: [2nd ed.] View all formats and editions
Publisher: The Campaign, Milwaukee, WI, 1997

It looks like all five copies *in existence* are in Madison. One at the Historical Society & the others at the Madison Area Technical College Libraries; both are only 1800 miles away from here!

I did find a 1998 interview with him on DemocrocyNow!
https://www.democracynow.org/1998/6/16/wisconsin_readies_for_school_voucher_system

And some other info on the Bradley Foundation:
https://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/06/12142/bradley-foundation-challenging-affirmative-action-voting-rights-part-long-term-cr
http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25737

[keep_left]

47. Yes, that's the one. I remember hearing Mr. Wilayto on a local community radio station as well...

...as on Democracy Now! The report also covers the disastrous school voucher experiment that the Bradley Foundation helped create. It's worth a read, especially if you're into historical documents. I'm sure there are many more extant copies than the five you found, but they are undoubtedly in private libraries that aren't interested in lending them out.

[Chicagogrl1]

44. 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

[LakeArenal]

51. Same thing happening in Texas. Trying to happen in PA.

[jonstl08]

54. Missouri also

The major cities of St. Louis, KC and Columbia (College town) are majority blue but cannot compete with the rest of rural Missouri where the GOP dominates. In my area of St. Louis county suburbs it is still roughly a 50/50 split between red and blue. The GOP always wins though. Have no idea why that happens.

The Dem running for US Senate in my opinion is messing up by not going to rural Missouri. She may not win those areas but needs to siphon some votes away from the GOP nominee.

[Lovie777]

3. Yeah . . .

RoJo can bash anyone and their children but don't like it when it's turned at him.

Whine, cry, call foul, just like the rest of the RWers - cowards.

[onecaliberal]

6. He needs cheese to go with his whine.

[iluvtennis]

7. Oh how do I hope Mandela Barnes can beat this ass. But per talking heads, it doesn't appear

likely. However, I can still send some positive vibes for Barnes to whip Johnson's butt.

[LudwigPastorius]

8. Ron Johnson...

That fucking jamoke can suck rhino anus all day long.

[rubbersole]

13. What do you have against rhino anus?

[11 Bravo]

10. Dear Ron, Please fuck yourself with a barbed wire dildo.

[Paladin]

12. You beat me to it. Well said. (nt)

[TheBlackAdder]

38. A large holed cheese grater one: easy going in, not so easy going out.

.

That imagery won't leave people for a while.

.

[Catherine Vincent]

15. What does he need 4 private jets for?

[calimary]

24. Hey! You can destroy the ecosystem faster that way!

[SergeStorms]

26. None of the Johnsons....

can stand being in the same room with each other, let alone being trapped inside an aluminum tube 25,000 ft. in the air with another.

Just one of the perks of being in the Ron Johnson family.

[wryter2000]

55. Probably to get away from each other

Who would want be a member of his family?

[unweird]

19. Actually the callout was for the self dealing a tax break for that jetbuying spree

The fucker personally benefitted from a tax break he had personally helped bring about. As well as his family in their purchases.

[DeeDeeNY]

22. Obama didn't really criticize him for owning the jets

What he criticized him for was voting for the tax breaks to own those planes.

[imanamerican63]

28. But Johnson made it about him and his family!

[pansypoo53219]

23. historicall dimwits like johnson get 2 terms + done. PRAY PRAY PRAY. fucking traitor.

[SergeStorms]

27. Didn't he originally campaign...

that he wouldn't serve longer than two terms?

[titanicdave]

29. .......Time to call out the...WAAAAMBULANCE........

[TigressDem]

35. + 10,000 nt

[Wild blueberry]

39. Ditto

[treestar]

40. Typical republican hypocrite

No surprise.

[sheshe2]

42. Have some cheese with your 'whine'. Ron.

[niyad]

48. May he, and his enablers, receive everything they deserve.

[The Jungle 1]

53. I mailed him a tissue.

How does he shave. He can't possibly look himself in the mirror and he will cut that thin skin.

[SheltieLover]

57. ...